China takes on Delta and its property developers at the same time

FOR SUCH a small place, Singapore has exercised an outsized influence on China’s economy. The city-state proved to reformers in China that a government could open up the economy without losing control. “Society in Singapore is quite orderly,” said Deng Xiaoping, China’s paramount leader, in 1992. “They managed things very strictly. We ought to use their experience as a model and…manage things even better than they do.”Unfortunately Singapore has not managed covid-19 as strictly as China would like. A resident of China’s Fujian province, who recently returned from Singapore, tested positive earlier this month for the Delta variant. He is thought to have passed it on to his son, from whom it soon spread through his school. Fujian has now recorded over 200 cases since September 10th. Exchanges between Singapore and China’s coastal provinces (the ancestral homelands for many Singaporeans) have brought many benefits. But this outbreak belongs in the other column.